"I'm the last of the Mohicans," joked Gus Ruetenik, owner of a cut-your-own Christmas tree farm. Ruetenik, along with his wife and parents, started the farm in 1947; he is the last living partner.
Jesse Rothacher

What: Family-owned farm that has been selling cut-your-own Christmas trees for more than 60 years.

When: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, now through Monday, Dec. 24.

Where: 9976 Welton Road N.E., Bolivar.

Cost: All trees are $45.

Contact: 330-874-2688.

I have an artificial Christmas tree, but inside of me, there's a live-tree gal struggling to get out.

Growing up, we had live trees for only a few holidays. I remember the crunch of my father's boots in the snow and evergreens towering over my 7-year-old head as we walked at twilight through a small lot planted with trees for sale. The tree I picked out leaned to one side no matter what we did, and the cat knocked off most of the needles.

For the rest of my childhood, we had an artificial tree. At the end of the holidays, my mom would simply pull a Hefty bag over it and carry it -- ornaments and all -- to the basement until it was time to reverse the process the following year.

Now I have enough ornaments to fill two trees -- one for traditional angels and French horns, and the other for Hallmark "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" talking ornaments. Nothing's more festive than a "Star Trek" shuttlecraft that says "Happy Holidays" in Spock's voice.

I envy my friend Marianne's tales of her annual family outings to cut their own Christmas tree at Ruetenik Farms outside of Zoar, about a two-hour drive south of Cleveland. She described it as a true Currier & Ives experience, so I decided to see for myself in the hope that one magical afternoon in the country would outweigh the bother of a live tree.

If you can't drive that far, there are cut-your-own tree farms closer to home, including North Corner Farm in Burton (northcornerfarm.com), Kurtz Christmas Tree Farm in Wellington (kurtzchristmastrees.com) and Heritage Farms in Peninsula (heritagefarms.com). Find choose-and-cut Christmas tree farms near you on the Ohio Christmas Tree Association website (ohiochristmastree.com).

I set out on a clear, chilly morning when most people were busy with Thanksgiving preparations. Gus Ruetenik, owner of Ruetenik Farms, was running errands when I arrived at the 80-acre farm, but sparrows and high-flying hawks kept watch.

I hiked the gentle hills, admiring the little trees that only reached my knees and the dignified elders that will probably never spend a day indoors. Some had branches adorned with silvery pine cones; a few were short and wide like bushy teapots.

None was anything like the pre-lit factory-built Christmas trees that come in a box. When you go live, you must be willing to embrace imperfections.

I was almost back to the farmhouse when I noticed a car moving slowly among the trees. Ruetenik had asked his niece, Leslie Ellis of Fort Wayne, Ind., to drive us around the cut-your-own tree farm even though her Chevy Lumina wasn't exactly an off-road vehicle.

I climbed in next to Ruetenik, a talkative white-haired 88-year-old with gnarled hands, an orange cap and glasses. He began telling me how the farm began as his father's retirement project.

In 1947, two generations of Rueteniks -- Elfrieda and Bernard, son Gus and his wife, Tish -- formed a partnership to start a forestry business. The families lived near Cleveland but looked for property near Zoar because Elfrieda had spent summers in that area and liked it.

The family obtained spruce and fir seeds and began growing seedlings. After a few years, Gus Ruetenik realized that Christmas trees would be more lucrative than lumber and began sales in 1953.

For 30 years, Gus, Tish and their four children commuted between the farm and Lakewood, living in a two-room farmhouse on weekends. In 1981, Gus retired from Ohio Bell as an engineer; he and Tish moved to the farm permanently and enlarged the tiny farmhouse. Until a few years ago, the Rueteniks planted 5,000 trees every year.

Ruetenik Farms sells 10 kinds of Christmas trees, everything from white pine and white spruce to Serbian spruce and concolor fir. It sells 700 trees in an average holiday season, which starts the weekend before Thanksgiving and runs until Christmas Eve.

"We're off to a very good start. But who knows?" Ruetenik said.

Customers pay a flat $45 and are given a saw and a sled. Cut trees are put into a motorized shaker to get rid of dead needles, then through a wrapper that bundles them in string. He flipped the switch on the wrapper machine; it belched thick smoke and made a deafening noise like a thousand Model T cars with bronchitis.

"We shake, wrap and roll," he grinned. I got the feeling he'd used this joke before.

Ruetenik has seen the public's tastes in Christmas trees shift with the decades. When the tree farm first opened, customers flocked to red and Scotch pines. They avoided firs, which had a bad reputation for excessive shedding. Now, the hot seller is fraser fir, which he said holds its needles well.

He used to just plant trees and sell them -- no mowing, shaping or spraying. Now, trees are shaped. "If you don't do that, you're done. People want more and more shaping," he said. He hires local teenagers to trim the trees and help around the farm during the selling season. They wear the red-striped aprons handmade by Tish, who died in 2008.

Ruetenik knows we city slickers don't want to hike through knee-high weeds between trees. We want the grass mowed so we can push strollers and wear sandals even though it's snowed (yes, he's seen this). So he mows, and he encourages parents to let their kids run around and roll down the slopes, just like his kids used to.

Of the original four partners in the farm, Gus is the only survivor. "I'm the last of the Mohicans," he joked.

No new trees have been planted since 2004. It's easy to imagine that in a few years the farm will only have trees that are too large for most customers. That might mean the end of sales at Ruetenik Farms, but Ruetenik rejected that chain of thought.

"I don't retire -- I'm not that type," Ruetenik said. He insisted that tall trees will sell to churches or other large institutions.

I wasn't interested in a tall tree; I had my eye on a shapely, 3-foot white pine. I took mental notes on where to find it and resolved to come back for it a bit closer to the holiday.

As Ruetenik and I said our goodbyes, I wondered what kind of tree a Christmas tree farmer selects for his own home. The answer is, he doesn't.

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